Attractions of Poltava

One of the first museums in Poltava was established in 1909 on the battle field of Poltava near the Mass grave of Russian soldiers to mark the 200th anniversary of the victory of the Russian army over the Swedes.

The collection includes more than eight thousand exhibits: works of art, weapons, awards, flags, uniforms and equipment of the Russian and Swedish armies, personal belongings of Petro I and his associates. The sounded diorama of the Poltava battle is established.

Nearby - a monument to Peter I, Sampson's Church (1895) and the mass grave of Russian soldiers, a cross on the grave of Swedish soldiers and a Monument to fallen Swedes from Russians.

Two redoubts (field fortifications of the Russian army) were restored, one of which is located on the opposite side of the road, and the other - near the "Poltava Battle Field" museum building.

The Poltava Museum of Aviation and Cosmonautics is dedicated to outstanding events in aerospace science and technology in Ukraine and the world.

The Museum of Aviation and Space Rocketry was founded in Poltava in 1987 on the initiative of the creator of rocket engines, Academician Valentyn Hlushko.

The exhibition is housed in the former building of the first Poltava fire brigade (1810). Personal belongings of cosmonauts, models of spaceships and real units of space vehicles are exhibited in 6 halls.

A significant place in the exposition is given to natives of Poltava region. In particular, the scientific heritage of Yuriy Kondratyuk from Poltava is highlighted.

The holdings of the Poltava Museum of Aviation and Cosmonautics include about 4 thousand exhibits.

The Exaltation of the Cross Monastery in Poltava was founded in 1650 on the banks of the Vorskla River at the expense of Colonel Martyn Pushkar, a Poltava elder and burghers.

The Cathedral of the Ascension of the Cross (1699-1709) is the only seven-headed baroque church in Ukraine that has survived to this day. The four-story belfry (1786) in the late Baroque style is 43 meters high. The complex also includes the single-domed Trinity Church (1750) and the Simeon Church (1887).

During the war with the Swedes, there was a pond of Karl XII.

In the first half of the 20th century, the monastery was closed and ransacked, the premises were used by the NKVD as a prison for minors, then as a boarding school.

The complex of the Exaltation of the Cross Monastery was returned to the church in 1991.

The monument to the Swedish soldiers who died during the Battle of Poltava was opened in 1909 at the initiative of the Russian public in recognition of the bravery and courage of the soldiers of the army of Charles XII.

A memorial cross on a granite pyramid was installed at the place where the right flank of the Swedish army was located in the second stage of the battle. The height of the monument is about 9 meters. The inscription on the bronze plaque reads: "Eternal memory of the brave Swedish soldiers who died in the battle near Poltava on June 27, 1709."

According to various estimates, the losses of the Swedish army in the Battle of Poltava ranged from 6,000 to 7,000 people. Most of the dead were hastily buried in trenches and ravines.

The monument to the Swedes from the Russians is located right next to the highway at the entrance to Poltava from the Okhtyrka side.

The "Monument to Colonel Kelin and the Valiant Defenders of Poltava" was erected in 1909 on the site of the Masurian Gate of the Poltava Fortress in memory of the city's defense on the eve of the Battle of Poltava in 1709.

For 3 months, the fortress withstood the siege of the Swedish army of Charles XII before the approach of the main forces of the Russian Peter I. The defense was led by the commandant of the Poltava fortress, Colonel Oleksiy Kelin, who received the rank of major general for this.

The monument to the defenders of Poltava by the sculptor-animalist Artemiy Ober was erected for the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava. The monument is a granite obelisk on a pedestal on which a bronze figure of a lion is located. Previously, the obelisk was crowned with an imperial double-headed eagle.

The People's Museum of History of the Poltava Polytechnic named after Yuriy Kondratyuk is dedicated to the creation and development of one of the oldest universities in the Poltava region, which was founded in 1930.

The university is located in the former building of the Poltava Institute of Noble Girls.

The exposition of the museum has 10 sections, where more than a thousand exhibits are presented, which acquaint visitors with the stages of development and traditions of the Poltava Polytechnic staff. In particular, you can see a clock from the house of the famous Poltava inventor Yuriy Kondratyuk, whose name is the university.

A separate exposition is occupied by models of the university building, stands with scientific achievements, awards of the former Poltava Civil Engineering Institute, which for a long time was transformed from a single-profile institution of higher education into a classical European university.

The Church of the Ascension of the Lord on the territory of the current residential area of Polovka in Poltava (the former village of Pushkarivka) was built in 1762 at the expense of Poltava colonel Ivan Chernyak as the cathedral church of the Pushkarivsky Ascension Monastery, founded here in 1721.

According to some sources, Motrya Kochubey, the daughter of General Judge Vasyl Kochubey, executed by Hetman Ivan Mazepa, spent the last years of her life here in a monastery (until the 30s of the 20th century, there was a grave of Motrya in the monastery cemetery).

At the beginning of the 19th century, the monastery was closed, and the Ascension Church acquired the status of a parish. All the monastery buildings fell into disrepair and were dismantled. Currently, the Church of the Ascension is an active church of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The Church in honor of the holy martyrs Faith, Hope, Love and their mother Sophia was built in 2002 at the initiative of the city authorities and the women's religious community of Poltava.

The author of the project is the Honored Artist of Ukraine, architect Anatoliy Chornoshchokov. Inside the church, the earthly abode of Jesus Christ is separated to the entire height of the church by a carved iconostasis made by masters of the Lviv company "Syaivo". Some icons were brought from the Pochaiv Lavra.

The five-bath temple in the style of classicism is crowned by a central five-meter cross. Decorative baths contain seven bells. All of them were cast at the Poltava Locomotive Repair Plant. The most powerful of them, weighing 271 kilograms, is called "Poltava".

The former monument at the resting place of Peter I in Poltava, according to legend, was erected where in the 18th century the house of the Cossack Mahdenko was located, in which the Russian Tsar Peter I stayed on the second day after the Battle of Poltava in 1709.

The first monument, erected in 1817, was a simple brick obelisk. In 1849, the current monument of architect Oleksandr Bryullov, brother of the famous artist Karl Bryullov, was erected instead.

The rest of the emperor after the victory in the Battle of Poltava is symbolized by the ancient Russian helmet crowned with a laurel wreath and the round shield, which rests peacefully on the hero's sword. A high-relief image of a sleeping lion is placed in the lower part of the granite pedestal. The inscription on the pedestal says: "Peter I rested here after his exploits on June 27, 1709."

In 2025, the monument at the resting place of Peter I in Poltava was dismantled as part of the decolonization of public space and the removal of symbols of Russian imperial ideology.

The Peoples Museum "Musical Poltava Region" at the Poltava Professional College of Arts is named after its founder - Ukrainian conductor, teacher, composer and folklorist Mykhailo Fisun, who began forming the collection of the future museum in the early 1970s.

Currently, the exhibition is presented in three thematic halls: "History of the Poltava Music College named after Mykola Lysenko", "The Founder of Ukrainian Classical Music Mykola Lysenko and His Followers", "Musical Poltava Region".

Among the exhibits: photographs, documents, letters, printed and handwritten works of composers, souvenirs, ceramics, sculpture, minting, records. In particular, a collection of ritual songs with the personal seal of Mykola Lysenko, a collection of folk songs with the autograph of the Ukrainian writer Marko Vovchok, the score of the cantata "In Eternal Memory of Ivan Kotlyarevsky" with the autograph of Mykola Lysenko, etc.

Also in the museum you can learn about the life and fate of the most famous kobzars and lyrists of the Poltava region.

The memorial sign to the Poltava halushka, installed next to the observation deck on Ivanova Hill, is considered one of the symbols of modern Poltava.

The authors of the monument are the artist Anatoliy Chornoshchokov and the sculptor Mykola Tsys. The opening of the monument in 2006 was dedicated to the birthday of the writer Mykola Hohol, who praised halushka in his works.

Initially, the monument was erected near the Holy Assumption Cathedral, but at the request of believers, it was later moved closer to the Lileya restaurant.

This place is popular with newlyweds and guests of the city. Every year in the first decade of June, the Poltava Halushka Festival is held near the monument.

The Museum of Science in Poltava was opened in 2023 at the National University "Poltava Polytechnic named after Yuriy Kondratyuk" to the 205th anniversary of the establishment of the educational institution.

This is an interactive space where scientific discoveries made by mankind, inventions of Poltava Polytechnic scientists and the evolution of scientific progress are presented in an accessible and interesting form.

The basis of the exposition is made up of exhibits from the history of the Poltava Polytechnic - one of the most famous and oldest higher educational institutions of the Poltava region. It is located in the historical building of the Institute of Noble Girls - an architectural monument of the first half of the 19th century. The modern university was founded in 1930 as the Poltava Institute of Agricultural Construction.

The museum presents a model of the university building, models of mining machinery and oil production equipment.

15 exhibits from the mobile exposition of the Kyiv "Science Museum" are adapted both for children of primary school age and for adult visitors. By interacting with the exhibits and using the tips of the interpreters, visitors have the opportunity to learn about various laws and phenomena of physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, etc.

Since 1962, the modest Saint Macarius Church has been the cathedral of the Poltava Diocese.

The small parish Macarius church was built on the outskirts of the city at the beginning of the 20th century. According to the prophecy of the foolish Kuzma Ivashyn from Horbanivka, who lived in the 20s of the last century, this church was supposed to withstand the calamity and later become a cathedral, since almost all other churches of the city would be destroyed. And so it happened - a wave of temple destruction in Soviet times bypassed the Macarius Church. And after the Transfiguration Cathedral was demolished in 1962, it really acquired the status of a cathedral.

Several restorations did not change its original appearance. Paintings from the beginning of the 20th century have been preserved in the interior, in the northern part of the church there is the largest shrine of the cathedral - the Horbaniv miracle-working icon of the Holy Mother of God (1786), in the Illinsky aisle - the revered Kapluniv miracle-working icon.

The Church of Nicholas the Wonderworker was founded during the construction of the Poltava Fortress, and was located on one of its bastions on Institute Hill.

At first it was wooden. In 1774, a new stone Saint Nicholas Church was built. By the middle of the 19th century, the small church could no longer accommodate all the parishioners, and in 1855, a two-story stone annex was built at the expense of the merchant Mykola Vakulenko, on the second floor of which the warm church of George the Victorious was located.

The main temple was destroyed during the Second World War (fragments of brick walls remained), and the annex was preserved - in Soviet times it was used as a production facility.

Currently, the Saint Nicholas Church is functioning. Belongs to the community of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR

On the night of October 3, 2025, as a result of a nighttime Russian missile attack, the Saint Nicholas Church of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine suffered significant damage - the blast wave broke out half of the windows and damaged the refectory.

The church of the holy great martyr and healer Panteleymon is located in the park named after Ivan Kotlyarevskyi, on the territory of which the city cemetery used to be located.

The All Saints Cemetery Church was located near the cemetery, in which at the end of the 19th century, the famous pope Hapon, the leader of the Christian trade union of St. Petersburg, the organizer of the mass march of workers on the day of "Bloody Sunday", served as a priest. During Soviet times, the All Saints Church was destroyed.

In 1999, by the decision of the city authorities of Poltava, the construction of the church of Saint Panteleymon was started nearby. On September 19, 2000, the church was consecrated, and on September 23 - the first divine liturgy.